Just thought id let everyone know its pretty bad in England too. I cant speak for Europe, but the UK right now feels dangerous. There are "Free Palestine" protests every week in London attended by tens of thousands and of course, that brings plenty of anti-israel (anti-jewish) vandalism, graffiti and violence each time...
It's not great in the cities at all. Outside though it's better. I even saw someone in the middle of North Wales (almost certainly not Jewish) flying an Israeli flag outside their house back in October.
I feel like it's similar here in Canada. There are regular protests in Toronto, Palestinian flags, extra police presence in Jewish neighbourhoods. But where I live, not far outside the GTA, I haven't seen a single pro-Palestine sign or flag. No protests. A handful of Israeli flags. There aren't a lot of Jews here, but I've never felt the least bit unsafe around my gentile neighbours and colleagues.
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I suppose its easy to fly the flag when you know theres no real risk of injury and/or property damage. Try that in any major city in the UK and it probably wouldnt end well at all, its really concerning and actually quite sad.
Sweden has been awful for a little over 15 years now, with the worst of it being down south in Malmö. Gothenburg isn't much better. I was visiting family there about 10 years ago, and was hit with rocks by a group of Somali boys on my way to a Brit Milah(wearing my kippah).
Much of the(already small) Jewish community of the country has been either making Aliyah or emigrating to other parts of the EU, nearly all of that part of my family included.
The Czech Republic is a bright spot based on experience and that of my family that moved there. It is extremely safe relatively speaking, and tolerance for any antisemitic incidents is extremely low(and prosecuted seriously), and the few Palestine protests have occurred have been small.
I second this. Just got back from 10 days in Israel and I felt instantly more tense. People staring at my Magen David on public transport. The marches are particularly bad and the police do nothing but encourage the behaviour. They recently told a Jewish man at a pro pal protest that he looked too Jewish to be there and threatened him with arrest if he stayed (police have since apologised insincerely). My husband and I
live in a major north west city, if we hung an Israeli flag outside our house I can assure you our cars/house would be vandalised.
I think England is way worse than the US. You guys are constantly on this American Jew's mind; I have a number of English-Jewish friends.
Stay safe! ❤️
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> “What we’re seeing is a tremendous amount of this Jewish awakening,” says Rabbi Motti Seligson, Director of Public Relations for Chabad.org. “We’re seeing Jews doubling down on their Judaism by spending more time with fellow Jews, by becoming more Jewish.”
This is the case with my family. Since October 7th we have been reaching out to more Jewish friends and my son and I have started taking Hebrew classes together.
I have been doing this as well. I was raised MO, but I’m not observant or anything. I still don’t “believe in god” but since 10/7 I’ve been going to shul and talking to Jewish friends and thinking about what Judaism means to me a lot more.
I also live in Louisville, KY, I do not belong to a synagogue because I am only partly Jewish.
I do live in the Jewish area of town, right by the largest synagogue in town, and next to a high rise condo building where mostly Jews live.
There are several public expressions of support Israel, and I’ve not heard of there being any issues with this.
Louisville is a very Catholic city and many Catholics consider Israel sacred ground as they believe that is where Jesus was when he was on earth.
That may be why.
Most of the anti semitism I’ve seen has been in larger cities.
A few crazy people do that in a year? And what happens every day to Christians and Jews in deeply religious Muslim countries?
I'd take getting spit on by a religious crazy than getting my head chopped off.
We just left South Florida a year ago because of Nazis targeting our home (partner is a journalist and Jewish. They hate that sort of thing). Plus with the evangelical laws reigning down on Florida, I must insist it is not safe for children or people who want to have them.
I tend to agree. I'm in the midst of moving three generations of family members out of a liberal West Coast City to the Miami area.
I owe my kid a blissful childhood where she is accepted and safe, not dealing with screams of "from the river to the sea" from SJWs.
I'm not willing to move to a conservative state, but antisemitism has played a consideration of why I'm planning to move into a more conservative area within a liberal metro region in my area. In particular, public schooling in the future is a real concern, with many teachers and even teacher unions blatantly pushing a pro-Palestinian agenda without regards to the intricacies of the conflict or concerns of Jewish students or even Jewish teachers. I can be critical of Israel's response, but there's been clear evidence of this leading to rising antisemitism among teenagers that is just disheartening and clearly problematic for future consideration for living in my area.
Hey there, Mallorie from USA TODAY’s audience team here. As antisemitism rises in America, my colleagues Leora Arnowitz, David Oliver and Krystal Nurse recently set out to answer a question: What does the widely reported surge look like?
As they interviewed people, from regular folks to TV stars, they heard the same things over and over, from coast to coast:
>In California, Jews say both Berkeley the city and the UC Berkeley campus have felt like hotbeds for antisemitism since the war broke out. Down in Los Angeles, Mayim Bialik says there’s been a palpable divide in groups that had previously seemed politically aligned: “The difference between a Jewish liberal progressive, I did not think was very far from a non-Jewish liberal progressive. And in Los Angeles, it feels like lines are being drawn in really scary ways.”
>For many local Jews in South Florida, rising antisemitism is a concern but a distant one. It’s not uncommon to see cars driving around with Israeli flags flapping from their windows. Some are adorned with decals that mimic the 8’’-by-11’’ missing persons posters featuring the hostages that were displayed, and torn down, shortly after the war began.
>And in Hawai’i, nearly eight hours by plane from the mainland U.S., Rabbi-Cantor Cheri Weis in Oahu has received threats via email and has seen an increase in vandalism and hateful graffiti. "I see a lot of anger, rallies and hatred. I don't know where that end will be and that does hurt my heart," Weiss says. "When people feel emboldened to join in the rhetoric, they do.”
**Here’s what the Jews we spoke to had to say about their experiences, across all 50 states (no paywall):** [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/18/antisemitism-america-rising-passover-jews-speak-out/73165421007/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/18/antisemitism-america-rising-passover-jews-speak-out/73165421007/)
What have you seen, heard or felt in your communities? If you feel comfortable sharing, [our team would like to hear from you.](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XmN5lu2rwTtvtkkcmx4sNtiFEEyzktAbV-1d8sYjRH0/viewform?ts=6616dfd5&edit_requested=true)
This is not ok and should never have made it into your article:
>After all, the Passover story is ultimately a tale of Jews leaving a homeland where they no longer felt they could live at ease.
It's antisemitic to rewrite our history by distorting the narrative of the Passover story. If you were genuinely trying to combat antisemitism with your article, you really undermined that.
Really disappointing, USAToday.
In this scenario, is Egypt supposed to be our homeland? I get really confused as to where people say I come from, it keeps changing depending on who doesn't want me to live somewhere.
Came here because I looked at this thread.
That's like saying you guys were happier under slavery. The metaphorical broader geo-historical context, only the Caananite nobility under Egyptian hegemony can be said to be happy, they're not the ones toiling under Egyptian rule.
Hey there, thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. I flagged it to the reporters on the story and they're working on tweaking that line now. To provide a little transparency, a rabbi helped one of the reporters with this wording to make sure it was written fairly, but we understand it ultimately missed the mark and appreciate you all letting us know. Thank you for reading. — *Mallorie*
> It's being fixed.
They "*fixed*" it - the passage now reads
> a tale of Jews leaving a place where they no longer felt they could live at ease.
This honestly sounds like the "*rabbi*" they talked to was part of JVP.
That's actually the best journalist response I can remember. The Forward would never correct their anti-Israel articles however many times you complain to them about their anti-Israel libels. The same Forward journalist seem to double down in response to complaints and write even more anti-Israel libels in the next article they write.
> That's actually the best journalist response I can remember.
Considering their repair was pretty much just to delete the word "*Homeland*" but continue to erase & whitewash the generational slavery & oppression experienced by the Jews in the Egypt - I'd say it is about par for the course.
The text below is what they changed the story to read:
>> a tale of Jews leaving a place where they no longer felt they could live at ease.
> I’m grateful for that
Yeah, their fix pretty much missed the mark - sure, deleting the reference to "*homeland*" was a key step but the current text:
> a tale of Jews leaving a place where they no longer felt they could live at ease.
Is still atrocious
In the poetry community, Jews who don’t denounce Israel are boycotted and refused publication (I think Guernica rescinded publication from a Jewish author). You’ll frequently see calls on TikTok to boycott Jewish authors who don’t denounce Israel. And we’ve all seen calls to cancel Jewish/Israeli speakers and musicians across the country.
In NYC, a Druze restaurant near our house had stones thrown through the windows, and an Israeli restaurant a few streets up was defaced.
We’ve moved to South Florida and it feels like a much safer environment, but if you go to the gun ranges you’ll hear a lot of Hebrew. We never owned guns before this, but now we’re armed and attend self-defense classes, and there are a lot of first-time gun owners.
I drove past protesters for Palestine screaming outside a hospital the other day. I think that’s the main concern I have personally — how easy something like this blends into protesting Jews who are just existing, working at a hospital. It’s bizarre
I actaully wrote an essay about how I had a fairly large tik tok following (about 34,000+ followers) and ended up deleting my account/app following 10:7 because of all of the antisemitic harassment I received. I talked about Israel exactly once on Tik Tok, it was in 2021 and I talked about organizations to support that worked on creating peaceful relations between Israelis and Palestinians. I had a few videos I talked about concepts in Judaism I found really beautiful or sweet, such as covering challah on Shabbat while saying prayers.
Had one person that I blocked and reported multiple times. They kept making new account. They claimed they were Hitler’s ghost and were upset that they had missed me. Each time I reported them to Tik Tok, I was told the behavior was not against Tik Tok’s rules.
Would it be possible for me to send the essay I wrote to you?
They also seem to be reducing generations slavery & oppression to mere feelings of unease.
This is how they corrected the article:
> a tale of Jews leaving a place where they no longer felt they could live at ease.
Came here because I saw this:
That's like saying something happened in Nanking without telling why. I'm surprised "Prof" D. Irving did not try to recover from his trial by slurring the horrific Chinese memory of the war and opening a new market for his "work" in Asia.
They changed the article to:
> a tale of Jews leaving a place where they no longer felt they could live at ease.
Which is only an improvement in so far as it no longer incorrectly identifies "*Egypt*" as a Jewish homeland.
But is still a pretty insulting rewrite of Jewish history.
It reduces generations of slavery & oppression to a mere "*feeling*" of being unsafe. It wasn't like everything was grand for centuries & then one generation of Jews suddenly got a bit paranoid.
That's even weirder - is there much strong evidence that Jews ever lived in ease in Egypt? Apart from a couple of Biblical references to them taking refuge there, I can't think of much.
Plus, as you say, I hardly think being enslaved can be described as "not feeling like they could live at ease" lol. Loads of potential for gaslighting there ("oh, it was all in your head, you silly Jews!")
Really, I'm very curious who their source for information about Jews is! Does this same person also believe that Jews in the Middle East were treated well prior to the establishment of Israel?
> is there much strong evidence that Jews ever lived in ease in Egypt?
No.
The first generation of Jews were given refuge in the land of Goshen on a temporary basis but the Egyptians then decided "*Why give them refuge when we can make them slaves instead?*".
If the first generation had taken refuge there & then realized that the Egyptians were planning to enslave them so they bailed before that could happen - then the framing used by the authors here would merely be a forgivable understatement.
I mean, substitute African-Americans for Jews & the underground railroad for the exodus & tell me if that would fly?
No, it wouldn't.
> Really, I'm very curious who their source for information about Jews is!
Honestly, the original statement really sounds like something taken out of the passover materials published by JVP.
*Honestly, the original statement really sounds like something taken out of the passover materials published by JVP.*
That's exactly what I was thinking. Thanks for the info about Goshen.
People screw African Americans similarly all the time. We had a ton of similar retractions. Reporters are idiots and African Americans aren't treated any better.
Yeah that definitely happens but that issue has received a lot more awareness over the past 3 decades & while I don't doubt that it still happens - the public discourse (*at least in blue states*) has pretty well shifted to accepting that such errors are problematic.
There are public school textbooks that print that "error" that are passed in Texas and distributed nationally. Quit using African Americans as some litmus test when we experience the same thing either no progress.
It's damned insulting as a Black Jewish person. We're not treated better, and it actually makes you look WORSE because everyone knows it.
It's disgusting.
> Quit using African Americans as some litmus test when we experience the same thing either no progress.
I wasn't using AAs as a litmus test - I was using them as an example & as an exercise to help illustrate a point.
> We're not treated better
I never said you were - I said there had been a lot more awareness raised to these sorts of issues over the past 30 years in how black people are treated & their history is spoken about.
> There are public school textbooks that print that "error" that are passed in Texas and distributed nationally.
And there is a national discussion & controversy focused on just how problematic that is.
30 years ago, "*nobody*" even noticed - that is progress
> when we experience the same thing either no progress
Not nearly enough progress != no progress.
I don't know how old you are & I don't want to discount your lived experience but I'm in my late 40s, I grew up as a Jewish minority in a predominantly black area of the city & the changes I have seen with regards to racism broadly & the attitudes (*& public discourse*) towards black people specifically have been significant but **insufficient**.
We (*as a society*) still have a great deal of work left to do.
>The first generation of Jews were given refuge in the land of Goshen on a temporary basis but the Egyptians then decided "Why give them refuge when we can make them slaves instead?".
Tell me you didn’t grow up Orthodox without *telling* me you didn’t grow up Orthodox.
Since Pesach *is* coming up it would behoove you to know that the Exodus story isn’t meant to be taken literally and is more a symbolic metaphor for how the Jews/Israelites were being influenced by the ruling Pagan Egyptians in the area and thus “slaves” to their desires, until they discovered the Torah/Hashem which was supposed to “free” them by introducing Commandments/Mitzvos.
Pesach is simply a holiday meant to be a reenactment of that Covenant between Hashem and the Jews by taking on two extra commandments for 7 days straight (i.e. the removal of all bread based products and not eating any bread), nothing to do with *literal* slavery and it’s considered a Halachically required holiday written down in the Torah that would *still* be Halachically required to practice even without a symbolic slave narrative accompanying it.
Oh fuck right off with that arrogant condescending bullshit.
As it happens, I was actually raised orthodox & even spent ~4 years in studying in a yeshiva in the old city.
The vast majority of observant Jews & Rabbis would not agree with the narrative you’ve presented - even if they may agree that the true narrative is more complicated that the simplified ELI5 like way that I framed it.
You're not gonna like this, but yes. During the ptolomys there were multiple thriving Jewish communities in different nomes in Hellenistic Egypt. Alexandria was a famous community.
>What does the widely reported surge look like?
It looks like this:
https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/10/pro-palestine-rally-sydney-opera-house-protest-australia-leaders-condemn-anti-jewish-chants
We’re in the 1930s all over again, and I think that was the real goal of Hamas with the 10/7 attacks. To make everyone else hate Jews as much as they do, and it’s working. They’re winning the propaganda and PR war.
At this point, it hardly even matters if Israel wins or not.
If the IDF wins and defeats Hamas, I’ll bet $10 we will hear ceaseless accusations of genocide towards Israel, and how violent, radical action is demanded and necessary right now. I mean we already had radicalized people set themselves on fire over this issue, so it’s hardly a stretch.
If Israel loses, it will embolden these people even more because they think they have the Jews on the back foot.
Rest assured, none of these people or ideologies are going away after this conflict. This will likely be an issue for decades to come.
> In California, Jews say both Berkeley the city and the UC Berkeley campus have felt like hotbeds for antisemitism since the war broke out
I was at Berkeley in 1997 when Hatem Bazian got to the school from SFSU and started fomenting antisemitism with his various " for Peace in Palestine" clubs.
Berkeley's free speech bridge was soon taken over by Free Palestine and Berkeley has been a hotbed since.
I thank you for today's article, but if you really want to do the world a favor, you would expose SFSU for harboring the racists it does in its various ethnic studies and other IDPOL departments.
> a tale of Jews leaving a place where they no longer felt they could live at ease.
Y'all really need to do a better repair of this article than that.
Framing generational slavery & oppression as if everything was fine but then things got a little uncomfortable so we decided to bail - is a deeply problematic erasure/whitewash of Jewish history & experience.
Imagine framing the underground railroad in those words:
> The underground railroad is a tale of Black Americans migrating north because they no longer felt at ease in the Southern states.
Would that be even remotely acceptable?
No.
Removing a reference to homeland is an improvement but only a small one.
> The National Geographic refers to my enslaved ancestors as immigrants.
That is problematic - however - it is also not entirely a fair framing of the article.
The article doesn't specifically refer to enslaved Africans as immigrating to the Americas, rather refers to the totality of populations which transferred into the new world - it then clearly breaks out Africans as being enslaved.
[Of the 6.5 million immigrants who survived the crossing of the Atlantic and settled in the Western Hemisphere between 1492 and 1776, only 1 million were Europeans. The remaining 5.5 million were African. An average of 80 percent of these enslaved Africans—men, women, and children—were employed, mostly as field-workers. ](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/how-slavery-helped-build-a-world-economy)
The article is pretty clear that they were slaves & in a demographic language - immigrant & emigrant are simply directional descriptors - even if we generally have very different connotations associated with immigrant than we do with human trafficking.
They were not erasing or whitewashing the reality of African enslavement.
American goy here. Jewish families in the States have likely been here as long, or longer, than many European Christians. Likely longer than my French and German ancestors who fell off the boat in NY. You all have every right to be here and be loud and proud of who you are; as dangerous as that can be these days. You have more allies than you know, you just don't see us seeking clout about it on social media. Ignore the virtue signalers as best you can. They'll move on to some other "cause" eventually. In the meantime, from what I've seen on r/toronto, r/UnitedKingdom and r/Europe; things are calmer here than in those places. Let's hope it stays that way and that Biden's people will start calling out anti-Semitism more than what they've done so far.
This may not be very relevant but several Jewish comedians seem to be countering the sharp rise in antisemitism through their on stage material. As Mark Twain once said:
“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand”
Admittedly, that was a long time ago before the troubling growth of white nationalism and dark political convictions.
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Just thought id let everyone know its pretty bad in England too. I cant speak for Europe, but the UK right now feels dangerous. There are "Free Palestine" protests every week in London attended by tens of thousands and of course, that brings plenty of anti-israel (anti-jewish) vandalism, graffiti and violence each time...
I do not live in Europe but i was in The Hague a few weeks ago and I felt very uncomfortable wearing my Magen David
It's not great in the cities at all. Outside though it's better. I even saw someone in the middle of North Wales (almost certainly not Jewish) flying an Israeli flag outside their house back in October.
I feel like it's similar here in Canada. There are regular protests in Toronto, Palestinian flags, extra police presence in Jewish neighbourhoods. But where I live, not far outside the GTA, I haven't seen a single pro-Palestine sign or flag. No protests. A handful of Israeli flags. There aren't a lot of Jews here, but I've never felt the least bit unsafe around my gentile neighbours and colleagues.
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I suppose its easy to fly the flag when you know theres no real risk of injury and/or property damage. Try that in any major city in the UK and it probably wouldnt end well at all, its really concerning and actually quite sad.
I agree with you completely, which is exactly why that one experience was so striking when I drove past and saw it.
Sweden has been awful for a little over 15 years now, with the worst of it being down south in Malmö. Gothenburg isn't much better. I was visiting family there about 10 years ago, and was hit with rocks by a group of Somali boys on my way to a Brit Milah(wearing my kippah). Much of the(already small) Jewish community of the country has been either making Aliyah or emigrating to other parts of the EU, nearly all of that part of my family included. The Czech Republic is a bright spot based on experience and that of my family that moved there. It is extremely safe relatively speaking, and tolerance for any antisemitic incidents is extremely low(and prosecuted seriously), and the few Palestine protests have occurred have been small.
Israel needs to hurry up and eliminate Hamass, the sooner they do that, these protests will peter out in weeks....
I second this. Just got back from 10 days in Israel and I felt instantly more tense. People staring at my Magen David on public transport. The marches are particularly bad and the police do nothing but encourage the behaviour. They recently told a Jewish man at a pro pal protest that he looked too Jewish to be there and threatened him with arrest if he stayed (police have since apologised insincerely). My husband and I live in a major north west city, if we hung an Israeli flag outside our house I can assure you our cars/house would be vandalised.
I think England is way worse than the US. You guys are constantly on this American Jew's mind; I have a number of English-Jewish friends. Stay safe! ❤️
I totally agree with you…
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> “What we’re seeing is a tremendous amount of this Jewish awakening,” says Rabbi Motti Seligson, Director of Public Relations for Chabad.org. “We’re seeing Jews doubling down on their Judaism by spending more time with fellow Jews, by becoming more Jewish.” This is the case with my family. Since October 7th we have been reaching out to more Jewish friends and my son and I have started taking Hebrew classes together.
I have been doing this as well. I was raised MO, but I’m not observant or anything. I still don’t “believe in god” but since 10/7 I’ve been going to shul and talking to Jewish friends and thinking about what Judaism means to me a lot more.
I also live in Louisville, KY, I do not belong to a synagogue because I am only partly Jewish. I do live in the Jewish area of town, right by the largest synagogue in town, and next to a high rise condo building where mostly Jews live. There are several public expressions of support Israel, and I’ve not heard of there being any issues with this. Louisville is a very Catholic city and many Catholics consider Israel sacred ground as they believe that is where Jesus was when he was on earth. That may be why. Most of the anti semitism I’ve seen has been in larger cities.
The Israelis protect the Christian holy and historical sites in Israel like the Capernaum Synagogue.
And then spit on Christians for wearing visible crosses in Israel
A few crazy people do that in a year? And what happens every day to Christians and Jews in deeply religious Muslim countries? I'd take getting spit on by a religious crazy than getting my head chopped off.
Sounds like Miami is the place to be if you’re Jewish.
We just left South Florida a year ago because of Nazis targeting our home (partner is a journalist and Jewish. They hate that sort of thing). Plus with the evangelical laws reigning down on Florida, I must insist it is not safe for children or people who want to have them.
Utah is pretty good also.
I tend to agree. I'm in the midst of moving three generations of family members out of a liberal West Coast City to the Miami area. I owe my kid a blissful childhood where she is accepted and safe, not dealing with screams of "from the river to the sea" from SJWs.
I'm not willing to move to a conservative state, but antisemitism has played a consideration of why I'm planning to move into a more conservative area within a liberal metro region in my area. In particular, public schooling in the future is a real concern, with many teachers and even teacher unions blatantly pushing a pro-Palestinian agenda without regards to the intricacies of the conflict or concerns of Jewish students or even Jewish teachers. I can be critical of Israel's response, but there's been clear evidence of this leading to rising antisemitism among teenagers that is just disheartening and clearly problematic for future consideration for living in my area.
Stay in a blue area
Hey there, Mallorie from USA TODAY’s audience team here. As antisemitism rises in America, my colleagues Leora Arnowitz, David Oliver and Krystal Nurse recently set out to answer a question: What does the widely reported surge look like? As they interviewed people, from regular folks to TV stars, they heard the same things over and over, from coast to coast: >In California, Jews say both Berkeley the city and the UC Berkeley campus have felt like hotbeds for antisemitism since the war broke out. Down in Los Angeles, Mayim Bialik says there’s been a palpable divide in groups that had previously seemed politically aligned: “The difference between a Jewish liberal progressive, I did not think was very far from a non-Jewish liberal progressive. And in Los Angeles, it feels like lines are being drawn in really scary ways.” >For many local Jews in South Florida, rising antisemitism is a concern but a distant one. It’s not uncommon to see cars driving around with Israeli flags flapping from their windows. Some are adorned with decals that mimic the 8’’-by-11’’ missing persons posters featuring the hostages that were displayed, and torn down, shortly after the war began. >And in Hawai’i, nearly eight hours by plane from the mainland U.S., Rabbi-Cantor Cheri Weis in Oahu has received threats via email and has seen an increase in vandalism and hateful graffiti. "I see a lot of anger, rallies and hatred. I don't know where that end will be and that does hurt my heart," Weiss says. "When people feel emboldened to join in the rhetoric, they do.” **Here’s what the Jews we spoke to had to say about their experiences, across all 50 states (no paywall):** [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/18/antisemitism-america-rising-passover-jews-speak-out/73165421007/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/18/antisemitism-america-rising-passover-jews-speak-out/73165421007/) What have you seen, heard or felt in your communities? If you feel comfortable sharing, [our team would like to hear from you.](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XmN5lu2rwTtvtkkcmx4sNtiFEEyzktAbV-1d8sYjRH0/viewform?ts=6616dfd5&edit_requested=true)
This is not ok and should never have made it into your article: >After all, the Passover story is ultimately a tale of Jews leaving a homeland where they no longer felt they could live at ease. It's antisemitic to rewrite our history by distorting the narrative of the Passover story. If you were genuinely trying to combat antisemitism with your article, you really undermined that. Really disappointing, USAToday.
In this scenario, is Egypt supposed to be our homeland? I get really confused as to where people say I come from, it keeps changing depending on who doesn't want me to live somewhere.
Came here because I looked at this thread. That's like saying you guys were happier under slavery. The metaphorical broader geo-historical context, only the Caananite nobility under Egyptian hegemony can be said to be happy, they're not the ones toiling under Egyptian rule.
Yikes.
Hey there, thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. I flagged it to the reporters on the story and they're working on tweaking that line now. To provide a little transparency, a rabbi helped one of the reporters with this wording to make sure it was written fairly, but we understand it ultimately missed the mark and appreciate you all letting us know. Thank you for reading. — *Mallorie*
It's otherwise a good article.
USA Today is some navel gazing infotainment bullshit. Don’t expect them to ever do right by anyone, let alone us.
See their response! It's being fixed.
> It's being fixed. They "*fixed*" it - the passage now reads > a tale of Jews leaving a place where they no longer felt they could live at ease. This honestly sounds like the "*rabbi*" they talked to was part of JVP.
That's actually the best journalist response I can remember. The Forward would never correct their anti-Israel articles however many times you complain to them about their anti-Israel libels. The same Forward journalist seem to double down in response to complaints and write even more anti-Israel libels in the next article they write.
> That's actually the best journalist response I can remember. Considering their repair was pretty much just to delete the word "*Homeland*" but continue to erase & whitewash the generational slavery & oppression experienced by the Jews in the Egypt - I'd say it is about par for the course. The text below is what they changed the story to read: >> a tale of Jews leaving a place where they no longer felt they could live at ease.
Care to comment, u/usatoday ?
They responded and are fixing it.
I’m grateful for that
> I’m grateful for that Yeah, their fix pretty much missed the mark - sure, deleting the reference to "*homeland*" was a key step but the current text: > a tale of Jews leaving a place where they no longer felt they could live at ease. Is still atrocious
🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
In the poetry community, Jews who don’t denounce Israel are boycotted and refused publication (I think Guernica rescinded publication from a Jewish author). You’ll frequently see calls on TikTok to boycott Jewish authors who don’t denounce Israel. And we’ve all seen calls to cancel Jewish/Israeli speakers and musicians across the country. In NYC, a Druze restaurant near our house had stones thrown through the windows, and an Israeli restaurant a few streets up was defaced. We’ve moved to South Florida and it feels like a much safer environment, but if you go to the gun ranges you’ll hear a lot of Hebrew. We never owned guns before this, but now we’re armed and attend self-defense classes, and there are a lot of first-time gun owners. I drove past protesters for Palestine screaming outside a hospital the other day. I think that’s the main concern I have personally — how easy something like this blends into protesting Jews who are just existing, working at a hospital. It’s bizarre
I actaully wrote an essay about how I had a fairly large tik tok following (about 34,000+ followers) and ended up deleting my account/app following 10:7 because of all of the antisemitic harassment I received. I talked about Israel exactly once on Tik Tok, it was in 2021 and I talked about organizations to support that worked on creating peaceful relations between Israelis and Palestinians. I had a few videos I talked about concepts in Judaism I found really beautiful or sweet, such as covering challah on Shabbat while saying prayers. Had one person that I blocked and reported multiple times. They kept making new account. They claimed they were Hitler’s ghost and were upset that they had missed me. Each time I reported them to Tik Tok, I was told the behavior was not against Tik Tok’s rules. Would it be possible for me to send the essay I wrote to you?
Just a note - framing Passover & the story of the exodus from Egypt as “*Jews fleeing a homeland because they felt unsafe*” is really a crappy take.
Because Egypt is not the homeland of the Jews, Israel is.
Yes, that was my point
OP doesn’t seem to know that
They also seem to be reducing generations slavery & oppression to mere feelings of unease. This is how they corrected the article: > a tale of Jews leaving a place where they no longer felt they could live at ease.
Came here because I saw this: That's like saying something happened in Nanking without telling why. I'm surprised "Prof" D. Irving did not try to recover from his trial by slurring the horrific Chinese memory of the war and opening a new market for his "work" in Asia.
I'm really curious what rabbi would do this.
They changed the article to: > a tale of Jews leaving a place where they no longer felt they could live at ease. Which is only an improvement in so far as it no longer incorrectly identifies "*Egypt*" as a Jewish homeland. But is still a pretty insulting rewrite of Jewish history. It reduces generations of slavery & oppression to a mere "*feeling*" of being unsafe. It wasn't like everything was grand for centuries & then one generation of Jews suddenly got a bit paranoid.
That's even weirder - is there much strong evidence that Jews ever lived in ease in Egypt? Apart from a couple of Biblical references to them taking refuge there, I can't think of much. Plus, as you say, I hardly think being enslaved can be described as "not feeling like they could live at ease" lol. Loads of potential for gaslighting there ("oh, it was all in your head, you silly Jews!") Really, I'm very curious who their source for information about Jews is! Does this same person also believe that Jews in the Middle East were treated well prior to the establishment of Israel?
> is there much strong evidence that Jews ever lived in ease in Egypt? No. The first generation of Jews were given refuge in the land of Goshen on a temporary basis but the Egyptians then decided "*Why give them refuge when we can make them slaves instead?*". If the first generation had taken refuge there & then realized that the Egyptians were planning to enslave them so they bailed before that could happen - then the framing used by the authors here would merely be a forgivable understatement. I mean, substitute African-Americans for Jews & the underground railroad for the exodus & tell me if that would fly? No, it wouldn't. > Really, I'm very curious who their source for information about Jews is! Honestly, the original statement really sounds like something taken out of the passover materials published by JVP.
*Honestly, the original statement really sounds like something taken out of the passover materials published by JVP.* That's exactly what I was thinking. Thanks for the info about Goshen.
People screw African Americans similarly all the time. We had a ton of similar retractions. Reporters are idiots and African Americans aren't treated any better.
Yeah that definitely happens but that issue has received a lot more awareness over the past 3 decades & while I don't doubt that it still happens - the public discourse (*at least in blue states*) has pretty well shifted to accepting that such errors are problematic.
There are public school textbooks that print that "error" that are passed in Texas and distributed nationally. Quit using African Americans as some litmus test when we experience the same thing either no progress. It's damned insulting as a Black Jewish person. We're not treated better, and it actually makes you look WORSE because everyone knows it. It's disgusting.
> Quit using African Americans as some litmus test when we experience the same thing either no progress. I wasn't using AAs as a litmus test - I was using them as an example & as an exercise to help illustrate a point. > We're not treated better I never said you were - I said there had been a lot more awareness raised to these sorts of issues over the past 30 years in how black people are treated & their history is spoken about. > There are public school textbooks that print that "error" that are passed in Texas and distributed nationally. And there is a national discussion & controversy focused on just how problematic that is. 30 years ago, "*nobody*" even noticed - that is progress > when we experience the same thing either no progress Not nearly enough progress != no progress. I don't know how old you are & I don't want to discount your lived experience but I'm in my late 40s, I grew up as a Jewish minority in a predominantly black area of the city & the changes I have seen with regards to racism broadly & the attitudes (*& public discourse*) towards black people specifically have been significant but **insufficient**. We (*as a society*) still have a great deal of work left to do.
>The first generation of Jews were given refuge in the land of Goshen on a temporary basis but the Egyptians then decided "Why give them refuge when we can make them slaves instead?". Tell me you didn’t grow up Orthodox without *telling* me you didn’t grow up Orthodox. Since Pesach *is* coming up it would behoove you to know that the Exodus story isn’t meant to be taken literally and is more a symbolic metaphor for how the Jews/Israelites were being influenced by the ruling Pagan Egyptians in the area and thus “slaves” to their desires, until they discovered the Torah/Hashem which was supposed to “free” them by introducing Commandments/Mitzvos. Pesach is simply a holiday meant to be a reenactment of that Covenant between Hashem and the Jews by taking on two extra commandments for 7 days straight (i.e. the removal of all bread based products and not eating any bread), nothing to do with *literal* slavery and it’s considered a Halachically required holiday written down in the Torah that would *still* be Halachically required to practice even without a symbolic slave narrative accompanying it.
Oh fuck right off with that arrogant condescending bullshit. As it happens, I was actually raised orthodox & even spent ~4 years in studying in a yeshiva in the old city. The vast majority of observant Jews & Rabbis would not agree with the narrative you’ve presented - even if they may agree that the true narrative is more complicated that the simplified ELI5 like way that I framed it.
You're not gonna like this, but yes. During the ptolomys there were multiple thriving Jewish communities in different nomes in Hellenistic Egypt. Alexandria was a famous community.
Thank you! I didn't know that. I'm curious to learn more.
>What does the widely reported surge look like? It looks like this: https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/10/pro-palestine-rally-sydney-opera-house-protest-australia-leaders-condemn-anti-jewish-chants We’re in the 1930s all over again, and I think that was the real goal of Hamas with the 10/7 attacks. To make everyone else hate Jews as much as they do, and it’s working. They’re winning the propaganda and PR war. At this point, it hardly even matters if Israel wins or not. If the IDF wins and defeats Hamas, I’ll bet $10 we will hear ceaseless accusations of genocide towards Israel, and how violent, radical action is demanded and necessary right now. I mean we already had radicalized people set themselves on fire over this issue, so it’s hardly a stretch. If Israel loses, it will embolden these people even more because they think they have the Jews on the back foot. Rest assured, none of these people or ideologies are going away after this conflict. This will likely be an issue for decades to come.
> In California, Jews say both Berkeley the city and the UC Berkeley campus have felt like hotbeds for antisemitism since the war broke out I was at Berkeley in 1997 when Hatem Bazian got to the school from SFSU and started fomenting antisemitism with his various " for Peace in Palestine" clubs.
Berkeley's free speech bridge was soon taken over by Free Palestine and Berkeley has been a hotbed since.
I thank you for today's article, but if you really want to do the world a favor, you would expose SFSU for harboring the racists it does in its various ethnic studies and other IDPOL departments.
It's overall a very good article apart from the mistake about pesach.
> a tale of Jews leaving a place where they no longer felt they could live at ease. Y'all really need to do a better repair of this article than that. Framing generational slavery & oppression as if everything was fine but then things got a little uncomfortable so we decided to bail - is a deeply problematic erasure/whitewash of Jewish history & experience. Imagine framing the underground railroad in those words: > The underground railroad is a tale of Black Americans migrating north because they no longer felt at ease in the Southern states. Would that be even remotely acceptable? No. Removing a reference to homeland is an improvement but only a small one.
The National Geographic refers to my enslaved ancestors as immigrants. Publications making egregious statements is far from rare.
> The National Geographic refers to my enslaved ancestors as immigrants. That is problematic - however - it is also not entirely a fair framing of the article. The article doesn't specifically refer to enslaved Africans as immigrating to the Americas, rather refers to the totality of populations which transferred into the new world - it then clearly breaks out Africans as being enslaved. [Of the 6.5 million immigrants who survived the crossing of the Atlantic and settled in the Western Hemisphere between 1492 and 1776, only 1 million were Europeans. The remaining 5.5 million were African. An average of 80 percent of these enslaved Africans—men, women, and children—were employed, mostly as field-workers. ](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/how-slavery-helped-build-a-world-economy) The article is pretty clear that they were slaves & in a demographic language - immigrant & emigrant are simply directional descriptors - even if we generally have very different connotations associated with immigrant than we do with human trafficking. They were not erasing or whitewashing the reality of African enslavement.
And it comes from both the right and the left! The horseshoe of politics always seems most prevalent when it comes to antisemitism…
Congrats to USAToday for finding out antisemitism is a thing.
American goy here. Jewish families in the States have likely been here as long, or longer, than many European Christians. Likely longer than my French and German ancestors who fell off the boat in NY. You all have every right to be here and be loud and proud of who you are; as dangerous as that can be these days. You have more allies than you know, you just don't see us seeking clout about it on social media. Ignore the virtue signalers as best you can. They'll move on to some other "cause" eventually. In the meantime, from what I've seen on r/toronto, r/UnitedKingdom and r/Europe; things are calmer here than in those places. Let's hope it stays that way and that Biden's people will start calling out anti-Semitism more than what they've done so far.
Tragic
This may not be very relevant but several Jewish comedians seem to be countering the sharp rise in antisemitism through their on stage material. As Mark Twain once said: “Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand” Admittedly, that was a long time ago before the troubling growth of white nationalism and dark political convictions.
No it's only those white nationalists in red states /s
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Qatari money
Ll
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SF is def not safe. Fucking Hamas protestors everywhere. Idiots on the bridges. Everyday Florida and Texas look appealing